1. Field of the Invention
A magnetic stripe on a document and intended to receive magnetic information.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Heretofore, when a patron of a bank approached a teller, he gave the teller his passbook and either a deposit slip or a withdrawal slip. The teller then had to look up the person's card and repeat the person's account number on various internal transactions within the bank.
By providing the passbook with a magnetic stripe on which the patron is identified by bytes of information, the computer system at the bank acquires this knowledge without having to have it supplied by the teller, and uses this knowledge on all internal transactions. This basic concept is not new. Some banks have heretofore tried to use this concept. They have proposed various ways of getting a magnetic stripe on the passbook. One way was to glue a substrate carrying a magnetic coating onto the passbook. The trouble with this structure was that the substrate had a finite thickness, and when the passbook was passed through a reader, the magnetic read head had to adjust to the difference in thickness between the passbook without the substrate and the passbook with the substrate. A magnetic head must be in very close proximity to the magnetic coating. But the magnetic head usually is fixed so that if it is close to the passbook cover, it will strike the edge of the substrate, and if it is close to the coating, it will be too far from the substrate.
Another one of the problems with the prior magnetic systems was that the magnetic coating was somewhat rough and abraded the magnetic head. The coating usually consists of tiny particles of a magnetic iron oxide, each of which is of crystalline configuration and therefore has sharp edges and points. Even if embedded in plastic, this type of coating presents a surface that is highly abrasive. This, too, is bad for magnetic readings.
Thus the prior art systems generally entailed the use of Mylar, e.g. Scotch tape, with a magnetic coating, which was applied to the bank passbook or like document having a paper substrate. The Mylar did not release readily but was removable and loose at the moment of application. One problem was inexact placement whether by machine or by hand. In most prior art techniques, placement was by hand. There is a high failure rate in this system, typically 20% to 30% failures, and the failure is only determinable after application. Bounce is a problem when the magnetic head encounters the Mylar strip. Some strips had magnetic oxides too deeply sunk and this increased the failure rate. The shelf life factor was poor, and close control on temperature was needed. Finally, Mylar deteriorates with age and use after application.
Among the prior art relative to magnetically readable labels and the like are U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,090,662 and 4,090,003.